Padma Lakshmi has said that she ignored pressure to lose weight after giving birth three months ago.

The Top Chef host told US Weekly that a difficult pregnancy left her bedridden for six weeks after delivering daughter Krishna, and that she found crash dieting an "unhealthy and futile exercise".

"I was 25 pounds heavier than people are used to seeing me. There was nothing I could do about it, so I just accepted it," she said.

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"I just thought, I had a baby, that's way more important. Women are beautiful in all shapes and sizes and I wanted to show women that you can dress well, that you can still feel sexy, that you can still feel confident, and it was okay if my boobs were big because I was feeding another human being."